View full sizeJeff Schrier | The Saginaw NewsAfter lunch and just before nap time, Federal Street Kinder Kare Center Director Donna Motton, right, reads a story to preschoolers in the Great Start Readiness Program at St. John's Lutheran Church, 915 Federal in Saginaw.

Today’s release of Kids Count in Michigan data paints a bleak picture of kids’ well-being in the Great Lakes Bay Region.

More children are living in poverty in Saginaw and Bay counties than were in 2005, and rates of abuse and neglect have increased in both counties over the course of the decade, the report shows.

Reports of child abuse and neglect climbed significantly in both Saginaw and Bay counties. Abuse and neglect rates in Saginaw County jumped from 80 investigated incidents per 1,000 children in 2000, to 117.7 investigated incidents per 1,000 children in 2010. Investigated incidents of abuse and neglect in Bay County climbed from 61.8 per 1,000 in 2000, to 93.8 per 1,000 in 2010. Midland’s abuse and neglect rate improved over the decade, with 59.5 investigated incidents per 1,000 children in 2000, to 56.2 investigated incidents per 1,000 children in 2010.

“The findings show that children across Michigan are still suffering the fallout from our long recession,” said Kids Count in Michigan director Jane Zehnder-Merrell at the Michigan League for Human Services.

More than 32 percent of the 46,841 children in Saginaw County are living in poverty, according to Kids Count data, ranking the county 74th out of 83. The statewide average of children living in poverty is 22.2 percent. Bay County children fared a bit better, with 17.9 percent of its 23,952 children living in poverty, ranking the county 18th best in the state.

Out of the three counties, Midland’s 19,855 kids were found in the best shape. The county, ranked 6th best in the state in terms of poverty, had 14 percent of its children living in poverty.

“Poverty in Michigan is as big a threat to our children today as polio was to a previous generation,” Zehnder-Merrell said. “Fortunately, we can do something about this. We know that public policy can improve children’s social and economic environment.”

The percent of children living in poverty jumped from 14 percent to 23 percent between 2000 and 2009, and the rate of children living in extreme poverty — roughly less than $11,000 a year for a family of four — jumped from 5 percent of children to 11 percent. That means that more than one in every 10 kids in Michigan is living at half the poverty level.

Statewide, almost half of public school students qualified for free or reduced price lunch in 2010, jumping from 36.2 percent in 2006. In Saginaw, more than 55 percent of school children receive free or reduced lunch. A little more than 47 percent of students in Bay County receive free or reduced lunch, and about 31 percent of students in Midland County receive free or reduced lunch.

Children growing up in poverty face lifelong consequences, Kids Count officials report, as they are less likely to graduate and more likely to suffer from heart disease, obesity and high blood pressure as adults.

“The impact of high unemployment and declining wages is leaving its mark on a generation of children,’’ Zehnder-Merrell said.